Been a busy few days! Hung out with Jessica and her boyfriend Ross, good people, good times. Also got a little more time in the parents, always a plus. Then visited Jenn for a night, which was nice to see her as well!

Today was a bear! I drove from Winston-Salem, NC to Russellville, AR. 896 miles in 13.5 hrs. And if it wasn't for a major detour due to a rock slide at the Tennessee/NC border I probably would be in Oklahoma right now... But hey, the detour was nice, beautiful area, and plenty of religious encouragement signs. Such as "E-mails won't get you in to Heaven" or "Give Satan an inch and he'll be your ruler" and "God - He knows everything!". YIKES, definitely God's country, which is fine, but funny at times.

The detour put me back some, but I didn't hit much traffic and got a lot farther than I had planned, so that's great! Probably be in New Mexico tomorrow and might be able to spend more time in some parks or Eloy or just get to Mammoth sooner. Maybe I'll squeeze a Vegas stop in to visit Sisti? Wasn't planning on it at this point, but who knows!

The state of Tennessee was pretty nice overall, I'd say Memphis seems to be the biggest city, but I didn't really stop to check any of them out. Interesting things I saw/heard - 1. The NATIONAL bank of Tennessee, didn't know it was a nation... 2. They have signs all over the place about keeping the state clean/nice, but all over the radio they are talking about drilling for oil in the US because they don't want high gas prices (gas is 2.49 here right now).

Arkansas is lame. First of all, their state sign was hung over the Mississippi River bridge, so I had to snap it while driving under it as opposed to getting in the picture. Second of all, the landscape is really bland and swampy.

Between last year's trip and this year so far I've come to a conclusion - Once you hit the Mississippi River heading West, the US is pretty boring. The central time zone is a place I am sure to never live. Each trip I've wished I could skip it!

Tired as hell, going to wake up and start driving at 5am again tomorrow. Central time zone = drive as fast and far as possible!